Bait and Switch
by I.C. Weener
Summary: Smells fishy.
1. Chapter 1

" _I could kill you any time I want, but it would be kinder from a friend!"_

\- Resident Evil 7

" _*that scene from Gundam SEED Destiny where Shinn kills the dude on the boat*"_

\- Gundam SEED Destiny

* * *

Mipha's trident clattered to the ground, becoming another one of the countless other weapons of fallen soldiers and warriors who had bravely given their lives to save their world. The Zora Champion staggered backward gasping in pain as she nursed a gash on her side. Her healing energies were seeping out of her faster than she had any hope of mending the wound.

The Waterblight swung his ancient spear to rid it of her blood. Mipha collapsed backwards and landed in the ruined square of Castle Town.

Her role in the prophecies was quickly approaching its end. She realized too late that this was meant to be her destiny. This was meant to be her doom. She was going to die in this sweltering inferno defeated, unaccomplished, and alone, cut down by the hand of the hideous Blight she had fought to regain everything stolen from her.

Something toppled to the pavement next to her. Even with her cloudy vision, she recognized the crumbling silhouette in an instant. His height, the length of his arms, and the form of his shoulders were all too familiar. She would have to know those details by heart. She had sewn the Zora Tunic for him back when she had a different future in mind.

Link was bearing wounds that a less valiant knight would have succumbed to in seconds. His armor was stained the same color as Mipha's scales from dozens of savage stab markings. His throat had been sliced open by a thread of Malice. Wisps of Calamity Ganon's ilk wafted in the air above him as the prophesized monster towered despairingly near his feet. The Master Sword lay next to him in a thousand twinkling shards because all weapons in that game are made of broken glass held together with superglue.

Mipha's and Link's eyes met inches apart. Their mouths were close enough to feel each other's shallow and burdened breath.

There was another sound that came beating down around them. Louder than the screams of dying soldiers and fleeing innocents, more menacing than the bloodthirsty snarls and roars of Ganon's forces, the ground where Mipha and Link had collapsed pounded in a mechanical rhythm.

Mipha weakly reached for his neck and shared the little healing power her body had left. All she could do was ease his pain as he made his transition from the living to the dead.

She had made a vow to protect Link until the very end. At least she was going to keep it.

Link tried to speak, but the damage to his throat caused his voice to fail. His eyes said he had lost all hope. His lips silently mouthed the words _"I'm sorry, Mipha."_ She replied by whispering "You did everything you could, Link. Everyone did the best they could. Now we can watch over Zelda and the others while they finish this."

The hero cowered his head in bittersweet acceptance.

Mipha's heart told her the rest of the Champions were somewhere in the chaos falling just the same as her, but she wouldn't dare speak her greatest fears in front of Link. She had to stay strong even as all her strength failed her. He needed her more than anyone else right now.

The earthquake pounded closer. Mipha and Link cradled each other in grief. In those last fleeting moments, he let Zelda slip from his thoughts and realized Mipha was his true princess. Now he'd be with her forever.

On Mipha's side, Waterblight Ganon waved his spear like an executioner at the chopping block. On Link's side, Calamity Ganon drew back his thousands of tendrils like a barrage of arrows ready to set loose on the two puny, broken figures sprawled on the ground.

The rumbling stopped just above them. A gigantic metal island rose out of the sea of fire.

The towering hull of Vah Ruta loomed over them. Her infested circuits glowed in the same shade of red as the embers of the razed city. Her tusks were foaming with Malice.

Link shivered as the last of Mipha's power waned and shock from his injuries began to set in. The fading look in his eyes and the slipping sigh of his breath let her know he had found what little peace he could in these final moments. He was only holding on so Mipha could do the same.

Mipha clenched back her tears and nodded sadly into Link's shoulder, signaling her final order to Vah Ruta. She hoped against all hope that the Divine Beast still had enough of her senses to answer this one small request for Mipha's sake rather than Ganon's. It wasn't the poor, rabid Beast's fault things had turned out this way. She didn't deserve to be blamed for granting two of her gentle masters a mercy killing.

Vah Ruta lurched forward. The shadow of her enormous armored hoof descended over the Zora and Hylian Champions, marrying them together in eternal damnation.

* * *

 _Author's note: The good news is Mipha dies "fighting" or whatever like that guy in the reviews for that other story wanted. The bad news is now you're stuck with the Lord Drakkon timeline._


	2. Chapter 2

" _I based my entire campaign for mayor on fighting crime. The Viper was supposed to be the flagship. Right now there's no one at the helm. I want this problem solved. Wilkes. Commander Thorne. I don't care where, or how. Find me a driver."_

\- Knight Rider

" _Gee, I've been saved by Fox. How swell."_

\- Revali, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

" _Your princess is in another castle."_

\- Ancient proverb

* * *

Two of the Champions still lived. Daruk and Urbosa made their way through the wake of Castle Town's destruction, checking each building and corner of the avenues for any signs of life or straggling monsters. Ganon's merciless attacks had come to a stand still, but the purple haze hanging over the city served as a constant reminder the slaughter could resume at any second. They were dealing with a natural disaster that liked stop and gloat over its victims from time to time.

A crazed vulture screamed above the rooftops. The possessed Vah Medoh swooped dangerously close to their heads, the third time he had scouted them in the past hour. By now the Beast-less Champions were accustomed to dodging into hiding spots under the crumbling structures of the market streets. There was no purpose in tossing away their lives in an unwinnable battle when they were still needed for so many other things and so few were left to help. They had learned that much from being forced to retreat from Fireblight Ganon and Thunderblight Ganon and barely escaping their Divine Beasts alive.

Vah Medoh lost interest in them within a minute and screamed back into the sky. The Champions cautiously checked their flanks and continued walking through the wasteland with their weapons ready.

Daruk suddenly stumbled in the smoke. His foot had landed on an edge of a giant impact crater in the middle of the road. He and Urbosa knew they had found the tracks left by Vah Ruta's rampage. They looked to each other with suppressed sadness and silently agreed to follow the path. They already knew it was going to take them straight to where the frontlines had collapsed.

* * *

The few remaining members of the royal court were huddled in the fortified keep of Hyrule Castle. It was enough to hold back the clattering bones of Stalfos and the intense rays of corrupted Guardians… until it couldn't hold back any more. It was either stay here in relative security or become open range on Hyrule Field.

On one end of a table, Zelda stooped over an ancient chiseled manuscript with her entire retinue of loyal Sheikah researchers and guards waiting on her. Joining her on the opposite side were two apparitions of the recently deceased. Link and Mipha could have still passed for living people if not for the pale green candle flames that constantly burned around them and the fact their feet never quite touched the floor.

The princess was locked in intense desperation. Sometimes she would be sitting with her fingers at her temples about to claw out her hair. Other times she'd crouch low with her clenched fists squeezing down against the table top, a second away from pounding the ancient tablet to rubble under her bare hands.

But when she did finally lose her composure, it was the sadness that she couldn't bear the most. She stared at the chiseled slate with watering eyes before all of her crushed hopes came pouring out.

"What am I doing wrong?!" she shrieked through her sobs. "Why haven't my powers awakened yet? All these years! All this preparation! I did everything I was supposed to! It says right in front of me the princess is supposed to wield the Light that will turn back Ganon! All I'm good for is digging up old fossils and telling worthless fairy tales!"

She rolled her head forward until she was nothing but a shrinking veil of gold hair and shivering blue shoulders. Mipha wanted so desperately to hug her and bereave her, but the Zora Champion couldn't do that anymore. That was a luxury only the living deserved.

"I'm a failure!" Zelda wailed. "I've cursed everyone I care about with death! My father in the Temple. The two of you here. Revali, trapped in… that _**thing!**_ When will it ever end? Haven't I ruined enough lives?"

Her tears streamed down her cheeks and drenched the granite tablet.

Mipha suddenly blinked.

Zelda had been reading the tablet facing herself. Mipha saw it from the opposite angle from her and Link's side of the table. As Zelda's tears dotted the inscriptions, tiny fissures were revealed and almost made parts of the garbled inverted Sheikah script turn into something legible to Mipha.

Her ghostly form loomed closer to the table. She held her icy hand as close as she could before the lifeless frost from her aura would damage the delicate inscriptions.

As soon as the eerie glow from her palm washed over the tablet, the text completely changed form and was oriented toward her. Every time she moved her hand away, the tablet changed back to the old gray script Zelda had been reading. Mipha's aura was acting like a lens that revealed an invisible truth.

"Your Majesty," she said in a dry, decaying voice. "There's something else written here."

* * *

The Champions found themselves in the desolation of the town square. Mortality was strewn across every inch of the road, but there was one specific spot the two refused to look: The final resting place of Link and Mipha. Urbosa instantly turned away, while Daruk squeezed his eyes shut in bitter resentment. Even knowing what they were going to find, they couldn't bear to see their friends like this.

But there was something else Vah Ruta's tracks had lead them to.

Both turned their heads the instant they heard a child's voice crying out several yards away. It was barely audible over the raging fires.

"… _avi…! …io…!_ "

* * *

Mipha began reading the spectral epitaph carved into the tablet. The words flowed as if they were meant to be spoken only by her voice.

" _Heed these words close, for the forces of Calamity draw their schemes from only the first chapter of the legend. When the crow flies over the blood moon at midnight, when the forest has fallen into the sea, and when the Princess of Dark has taken her throne with heavy sorrow, only then will it be safe for the Princess of Light to awaken from her sleep. The last of The Three shall be hidden in plain sight with the Clever Rabbit by her side. Let evil think it has won for a time, for it does not notice Light still glows dimly at the end of the path of suffering."_

Mipha broke into a faint smile of disbelief as she turned to her ghostly companion.

"Link, all this time… we've been reading this thing upside-down."

* * *

The Champions ran for the corner of the town square where daily plays had always taken place. A tiny violet-haired Hylian girl was digging through the collapsed stage trying to rescue her friend. She was costumed in a cheap, raggedy version of Princess Zelda's royal dress, clearly one of the troupe performers who hadn't escaped the city in time.

The one trying to pull himself out of the rubble was a dark blue-haired Hylian boy about the same age. He was dressed up like a patchwork version of the princess's Appointed Knight with a wooden sword.

Daruk went to work lifting the debris off of the boy, while Urbosa knelt to one knee comforting the girl.

"We tried to get away from here," the girl sobbed uncontrollably. "But all the monsters. So many monsters! There were too many for him to fight! He tried to help me. But he… he…" She buried her face in Urbosa's shoulder and wailed.

Daruk finished the excavation and helped the boy to his feet. He was perfectly fine aside from looking a little bruised and too groggy to speak. The girl quickly scrambled over to Daruk and hugged him.

"What's your name, kiddo?" Daruk asked her.

"Hilda," the girl said weakly.

* * *

Mipha's shade let out a sigh of trepidation before she continued reading.

" _The sacrifices will be great, but the evil called Ganon will be destroyed forevermore. The Princess of Wisdom will rally the survivors with her knowledge and determination, the Princess of Dark will guide them through the shadows of their most trying hour with her gifts from the Beyond, and the Princess of Light will awaken to save them._ "

Mipha lifted her head and looked at Zelda. Zelda wiped away her tears and looked at Mipha. Neither said a word, but they both were beginning to understand.

* * *

Vah Medoh screamed from the rooftops again. Several buildings crumbled near the stage as the bird landed. Daruk and Urbosa managed to pull the children away just before the four of them were crushed.

Vah Medoh deliriously twitched his neck from angle to angle as the Blight racked his mechanical body. He was much more determined to see his attack through this time. For the sake of protecting Hilda and her friend, the Champions had no choice but to fight to the bitter end.

Medoh crowed again. A red cloud glowed in front of his beak and materialized into Windblight Ganon.

"You little ones stay back," Daruk said sternly as he guided the boy and girl away. "This is no place for you."

Daruk and Urbosa were ready to charge forward in a unified attack. The Windblight was ready to kill them both in a single slash. But it was the boy who made the first attack.

He ran yelling his high-pitched battle cry with his toy sword in grip, dashing straight in between the two Champions with the reflexes of a small rodent.

* * *

Mipha recited the final phrases on the inverted tablet.

" _The old myths mean naught in this place. Hyrule as it was known eons ago has already been swept away under the waves of tragedy and exists only now as a namesake. This truth shall be guarded even from She Who Holds the Wisdom until the signs align and the forces of evil can be caught all the more unaware. Princess of Wisdom, know that the painful decisions you make are what sets the chess pieces in place. Princess of Dark, use your intuition to see your loss is secretly your greatest gain. Princess of Light, shine through the frightening times and help your elder sisters balance the Sacred Triangle. Find faith on this faithless day, for the Calamity exhausts its power hunting false prey and villainy is about to be caught in its own trap. What you struggle to save is not the dead Kingdom of Hyrule, but the oft forgotten…_ "

Mipha's voice faltered in confusion.

"Kingdom of Lorule?"

* * *

The boy was now the one about to take the brunt of the Windblight's attack. Hilda ran toward him with her arm outstretched. She screamed his name with all the grief in her heart.

"Ravio!"

The next instant, something happened that no one could have predicted.

* * *

Everyone in the keep glanced in shock toward the eastward window as the blinding light flashed through. The pillar was erupting from somewhere in the market ruins. It reached thousands of feet straight into the sky and sustained its power for several seconds.

The sight caused Mipha to become as speechless as Link. Zelda nearly broke into another wave of tears for a different reason. Part of her felt disheartened and even a hint of jealousy to find out she wasn't the great heroine foretold in legend. But then a feeling of relief slowly swept over her. Saving the world from utter devastation wasn't her burden to bear. At least, it was never meant to be hers alone.

But whose was it?

* * *

The pillar of light bursting from Hilda's outstretched hand disintegrated the Windblight in an instant. Cleansed of its curse, Vah Medoh's veins turned back to a healthy blue. The mechanical bird perched on a belfry and peacefully closed its wings.

Hilda and Ravio both collapsed from exhaustion. For the first few moments, Urbosa and Daruk only stared at each other wide-eyed and speechless.

Daruk was the first to grunt and shake his head, bringing himself back to their still uncertain reality. He lifted up Ravio and Hilda's resting forms like they were fragile bundles of twigs, tucking them in his hulking arms and bringing them under his protection.

The top of Vah Medoh's head opened with an ancient hydraulic gust of wind. Circles of pale green flames wafted out of the hatch and materialized into the visage of Revali. His wings were crossed and he looked equal parts thankful and disappointed. The first thing he shouted to the ground was straight and to the point.

"Where are the others?"

"Zelda is holed up in the keep with her Sheikah guard," Daruk shouted back. "She's been trying to figure out if there's something in the legends we've been missing. I'd say we just found a pretty big clue."

"What about Link? Mipha?" Revali's ghost asked.

Daruk lowered his head. Urbosa regretfully shook hers.

"Damn it." Revali scratched his crest in grief as he sighed. "I saw Ruta get hit by one of those snot rockets too, but I was hoping…"

He choked, switched to another thought.

"Did they wind up like me?"

"Their spirits are keeping an eye on Zelda. I don't think Link would have let Mipha be bound to her Divine Beast no matter how hard Ganon tried," Daruk said.

"They walked into the next world together," Urbosa quietly added.

"Well, lucky Mipha, then." Revali whistled. "I guess that's one way to get yourself a permanent bodyguard. I'll have to catch up with them on my next tour through Limbo."

Revali shook his head and let the bygones of his mortal days be bygones.

"Eh, this may have been my fault, too. That Windblight creep didn't seem to like how I was still shooting arrows at him even while I was bleeding. I would have pecked the bastard's eyeball out even with my guts hanging out as long as I still had a breath in my body. Probably thought he was getting the last laugh reducing me to a ghost-powered Sheikah rune."

The air suddenly picked up a chill. The clouds of Malice hanging over the town were beginning to swirl towards the spot where the beacon of light had appeared.

Revali stomped his talon on Vah Medoh's roof. The hatch leading down to the control cradle opened back up behind him.

"You guys get crackin'," he yelled down from his vantage point. "Medoh and I will provide air support. I'm not sure how much I can do on my own, but it looks like piloting is the only thing I'll be good for at this point. I can annoy that Calamity slimeball for a while and buy you some time to get those two to the castle. You ain't got too much to be afraid of when you're already dead."

Revali jumped down into the chamber and slammed the hatch behind him like it was a coffin lid.

Vah Medoh spread his turbines before taking flight. Daruk and Urbosa slipped into an alley with their two small refugees and began the treacherous journey back to Zelda's keep.

* * *

 _Author's note: meeeeh I changed my mind. The cool part is the pun title I came up for Chapter 1 when it was meant to be a one-shot actually works a quadrillion percent better now._


End file.
